People matter

Here at UNK we know it's our people who make the biggest difference. In the lives of our students, to our peers, to the people of Nebraska.

We know your name

Students aren’t just another number at UNK. They’re treated as individuals with different learning styles, needs and expectations. Here, we know the individual students and help them based on their individual needs.

Educating with care

At UNK, faculty and staff care about the process of education. They present materials in a meaningful way and meet face-to-face with students as much as possible.

Although we--Information Technology Group highly encourage you to write in a word processor such as Microsoft Word and save a local copy of what you post in Blackboard, copying / pasting from Word into any Blackboard text field can cause problems. This issue may arise when pasting into announcements, items, test questions, discussion boards, blogs, journals, Grade Center feedback, and email — Actually, anywhere on Blackboard that you find a text editor box, this issue may arise.

The Instructor is able to build rules to apply color to the cells in the Grade Center grid, either by grade or status. Adding color rules to the Grade Center provides visual indicators to help instructors interpret information quickly.

Blackboard Discussion Board: An example of text that you might use to introduce your students or organization members to the discussion board. This tech tip is an example created from ideas we have received from many of the faculty here at UNK!

In Blackboard 8, if you wanted to have your students turn in a draft of a paper and receive feedback and partial credit, you would need to delete the first paper they turned in so you could allow them to turn in the final paper. NO LONGER! In Blackboard 9 you will be able to set up an assignment and set it for unlimited attempts or you can specify the number of attempts you will allow. Blackboard 9 keeps all of the attempts that were turned in so you can go back if needed to an earlier attempt.

The "Hide Column" does NOT hide the grade column from your students! When you click on "Hide Column" in the Blackboard Grade Center, you are only hiding the column from yourself in the Full Grade Center view. This is useful for a faculty member if you have numerous columns that are already graded and you just want to get them out of your way so that you don't have to scroll so far to the right to see the next grade column. Learn how a faculty member can hide the grade column from the student. . . .

In Blackboard, avoid special characters and unnecessary HTML code. Some special characters will cause problems in your Blackboard course if used in the titles of files, items, discussion board forums, threads or posts, announcements, tests, etc.

Course copy in Blackboard is an easy way to transfer some or all of your course materials from an existing course to a new course. Important tips to remember are to first, delete any unnecessary items in your menu bar in your new course before copying. And finally, decide how you want to handle your discussion board threads before copying.

If you are using Internet Explorer 8 for accessing your Blackboard classes, you could experience some problems. To solve this issue, view the steps to set your Compatibility View Settings in Explorer 8. . . .

A course must be made available before students enrolled in the course will be able to view or access the course and its content. However, you may wish to leave a course unavailable during the building process, or make it unavailable after a scheduled course has finished.

One of the most frustrating experiences in computing is waiting for a slow-as-molasses startup to finish. CCleaner is a free system optimization tool which can be used to remove unused files and speed up your PC. It can clean Internet history from browsers and remove temporary stuff from other applications. It has a registry cleaner which finds and fixes all the registry errors.

YouTube is a video-sharing website. . Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, but media corporations and other organizations offer some of their videos as part of the YouTube partnership program. Unregistered users can watch videos, and registered users can upload an unlimited number of videos.

Qualtrics is a private research software company that enables users to do online data collection and analysis. The Qualtrics Research Suite is a good choice for academic organizations. It allows organizations to perform sophisticated research in house, reducing the need to outsource to specialized firms.

S3.Google Translator adds the power of automatic translations to your browser! It supports translation of selected text, entered phrase or whole webpage between any of 50+ languages. It can auto-detect foreign language and translate to a desired language.

The Mac operating system allows users to enter text in different languages. Users can switch from the default language enabled on the Mac computer to another language and then type in the new language. If users require any assistance with the new language keyboard configuration, they can launch the "Keyboard Viewer" tool to highlight the position of various selected language characters and the corresponding keys on the keyboard.

If you ever had any of the following questions, you must read this tech tip. What is Java technology? Why do I need Java? Is Java free to download? Why should I upgrade to the latest version? Do I need Java to use Blackboard?

As you browse the web, Firefox helpfully remembers lots of information for you – sites you've visited, files you've downloaded and more. All of this information is called your history. However, if you are using a public computer or share a computer with someone, you may not want others to be able to see these kinds of information. Thus, you need to clear your browsing history.

Colorful Tabs for Firefox is a highly customizable add-on that makes each tab that you open a different color which makes tabs easier to distinguish from each other and it helps to make the active tab stand out against the background tabs.

UNK Staff: Have you ever posted a leave request (i.e. sick leave, vacation leave, funeral leave) and then a change occurred in your life and you needed to delete the leave request? This tech tip will show you how to delete a request in Firefly.

Phishing is pronounced like fishing. Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by impersonating as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

Over the weekend, Facebook unveiled their new profile page of its 500 million-plus users to make it more of a reflection of the users’ real lives and emphasized one of the site's most popular features, photos. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes these changes are meant to make it easier for users to tell their story.

If you are using Firefox to access Firefly and SAP, do not upgrade to Firefox 4. Currently, Firefox 4 is not compatible with firefly and SAP. Internet Explorer 8 is the officially supported version for Firefly.

Firefox is constantly evolving to find ways to make Firefox better at adjusting to the latest security threats. Keeping your Firefox up-to-date is the best way to make sure that you are using the smartest, fastest and – most importantly – safest version of Firefox available. A Firefox software update is a quick download of small amounts of new code to your existing Firefox browser. These small patches can contain security fixes or other little changes to the browser to ensure that you are using the best version of Firefox available.

Firefox is constantly evolving to find ways to make Firefox better at adjusting to the latest security threats. Keeping your Firefox up-to-date is the best way to make sure that you are using the smartest, fastest and – most importantly – safest version of Firefox available. A Firefox software update is a quick download of small amounts of new code to your existing Firefox browser. These small patches can contain security fixes or other little changes to the browser to ensure that you are using the best version of Firefox available.

Have you ever needed to edit a PDF document? If so you’ve probably come to the realization that it isn’t all that easy. It also isn’t free. Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro retails for $449 on Adobe’s website. This program allows you to make simple edits, or export to Microsoft Word format for more extensive work. That gets the job done, but it certainly isn’t free. That’s why I’m going to show you a website that coverts those PDF files for free. Oh, and did I mention it’s literally as easy as 123?

Privacy is a pretty big deal at Mozilla. It's a huge part of their mission to keep you safe online and fully in control of your Web. The Web is pretty happy place. However, unfortunately, there are also some individuals out there who don't play nice with people's private information. This is why in the next few weeks, each Friday, in my tech tips, I will write guidelines to help you surf the net securely when you use Firefox.

Qualys BrowserCheck is a cross-platform and cross-browser service that scans the user's browsers looking for vulnerabilities in the browser itself and its plug-ins. This tool will also help you fix the security issues discovered by the scan.

Small URL’s are much easier for users to key into their browser when the URL is printed on a postcard or even when posting a URL to an email, blog, forum or wherever you might want to use your link. Check out these free websites.....

In the information age, most of us need to collect or compare information from multiple sources, and that often translates to multiple windows on your desktop. Keeping them arranged for maximum visibility and convenience will absolutely save you time, and may even help prevent errors. Snap makes it easy for you to tame all those windows. For instructions,

The FBI National Press Office released the following on May 3. The FBI today warns computer users to exercise caution when they receive e-mails that purport to show photos or videos of Osama bin Laden’s recent death. This content could be a virus that could damage your computer.

Everyone knows it’s important to create strong, secure passwords. Choosing “password” as your online password is not a good idea. In fact, unless you’re hoping to be an easy target for hackers, it’s the worst password you can possibly choose.

Different people have different ideas about what a wiki really is, but whatever angle you look at it, Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to collaborate in forming the content of a Web site.

Have you downloaded files yet been unable to find them afterward? Have you asked yourself, “Where did my downloaded files go? Why can't I find them?” If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions then, this tech tip is for you.

Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and has become the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet. Have you ever wonder about Wikipedia? Or how does information get into Wikipedia? Who creates it? The following short video introduces viewers to what goes on behind-the-scenes of Wikipedia so they can make the best use of what's on the surface.

Wikis allow students to work together to build knowledge bases, synthesize research, write papers, and present projects. The good news is that you can use Wiki in Blackboard as a collaborative tool that allows students to contribute and modify one or more pages of course related materials. Blackboard allows your students to create and edit pages while it tracks all changes made by each student for effective collaboration between multiple editors.

Did you know you can solve more problems with the iPad by simply rebooting it than any other troubleshooting step? Is your iPad running slow? Reboot it. Does an app quit every time you launch it? Reboot it.

Your iPad supports many different characters from around the world. This means you can type your documents in a variety of languages. There are lots of languages available for your iPad and you can easily switch between them.

The iPad screen switches to either the portrait or landscape view in response to the way you hold the device. You can lock the screen orientation to one view so that the screen doesn't rotate to another?

With iCloud, when you take a photo on one of your iOS devices, it automatically appears on all your other iOS devices. You may take a photo on an iOS device, or import a photo from your digital camera and iCloud automatically pushes a copy of that photo to your other iOS devices and now it even can push them in to your Picture library on your PC.

iWork is Apple’s productivity software suite, which includes Keynote, Numbers, and Pages. The new iWork for iPad suite takes advantage of the iPad’s touch screen input; for example, slides in Keynote, columns in Numbers, and text and graphics in Pages can be rearranged by tapping and dragging your finger.

With AirDrop, you can quickly send files to anyone around you—wirelessly. AirDrop doesn't require any setup or special settings—no preferences to change, no passwords to set. It makes sharing with other Mac users as simple as dragging and dropping. Your Mac must have OS X 10.7 Lion or later.

The Microsoft Office any year calendar can easily be personalized by replacing the photos with your favorite photos. It can be used year after year, as it contains a macro that enables you to change the year as well as the start of the week day from Sunday to Monday.

Microsoft Office Access and Microsoft Office Excel possess many similarities, which can make it difficult to decide which program you should use. For example, both programs can store large amounts of data, run powerful queries and analysis tools to slice and dice that data. However, each program has clear advantages — depending on the type of data that you are managing and what you want to do with that data. For example, if it is your goal to maintain data integrity in a format that can be accessed by multiple users, Access is your best choice, whereas Excel is better suited for complex numerical data analyzes.

To include a check box that can be checked electronically within your word document, you must first ensure that the Developer tab is displayed. And then insert the check box. For instructions click on this link.

Have you ever needed to edit a PDF document? If so you’ve probably come to the realization that it isn’t all that easy. It also isn’t free. Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro retails for $449 on Adobe’s website. This program allows you to make simple edits, or export to Microsoft Word format for more extensive work. That gets the job done, but it certainly isn’t free. That’s why I’m going to show you a website that coverts those PDF files for free. Oh, and did I mention it’s literally as easy as 123?

To prevent a user from accidentally or deliberately changing, moving, or deleting important data from an Excel worksheet or workbook, you may want to protect your data to prevent it from being changed. You can also specify a password that users must use to enter or modify information on the worksheet. Click here to learn how to protect your worksheet in Excel.

When authoring in Microsoft Word, the default template automatically skips a line between paragraphs - which is visually pleasing and does make it easier to read. But what if you're authoring in Word for another destination, such as a blog or social media site? When you cut and paste your text into your publishing tool, you may end up with a mess.

Microsoft OneNote 2010 is a digital notebook that provides a single place where you can gather all of your notes and information, with the added benefits of powerful search capabilities to find what you are looking for quickly, plus easy-to-use shared notebooks so you can manage information overload and work together with others more effectively.

In this Tech Tip you will learn to crop and scale down images for use on web based programs like Blackboard Home Pages. If you need an image size of approximately 150 by 150 pixels this is the tip for you.

The new Outlook for the Mac, delivers improved performance, reliability, and a fresh look and feel that is unmistakably Microsoft Office. This release offers a more familiar and consistent experience between Outlook on the PC, Outlook on the web, and Outlook Web App (OWA) for iPad, iPhone and Android devices.

You can easily manage your overflow inbox by creating rules. For example, you may be subscribed to a few mailing list and you want to send them to a specific folder. Here is how you may accomplish this task.

In Microsoft Outlook, you can view multiple calendars at the same time, either side-by-side or overlaid into one merged calendar. This can include your calendars and shared calendars from other people.

Bookmarks are links to websites that make it easy to get back to your favorite places. This tech tip goes over creating a bookmark for your new email account—Outlook Web App in Firefox. We recommend using Firefox for accessing Outlook Web App (OWA).

Bookmarks are links to websites that make it easy to get back to your favorite places. This tech tip goes over creating a bookmark for your new email account—Outlook Web App in Firefox. We recommend using Firefox for accessing Outlook Web App (OWA).

Microsoft Outlook can be used to allow another person delegation access to receive and respond to meeting requests or responses and to send email on your behalf. Other additional permissions which allow the delegate to read, create, or have full control over the mail can also be granted. More....

At this time, some emails that are not junk are being sent to your junk folder. It is suggested that you check this folder often (daily). Below is one suggested method to move these emails to your inbox.

By default, no holidays are added to your calendar when you begin using Outlook 2011 for Mac users. By using the import command you can imported holidays rapidly. This option contains a huge list of countries, each with different holidays which can be imported instantly.

If you have just received your new email account, your regional time zone may not be set correctly. As the result, the time for your received and sent emails is wrong. In addition, if you travel a lot for meetings back & forth to places with different time zones, you might need to set time zones accordingly. Outlook offers an easy way to set the time zones.

If you are in Outlook 2010 PC, Outlook 2011 Mac or the Outlook Web App (OWA) versions and have questions, the best thing to do is use the Outlook Help. In all three versions there are question mark icons that you can click on to access the Outlook help.

Outlook stands out among the other email clients because it includes list of features and tools, which add extra support for its users. Speak is a built-in feature of Word 2010, Outlook 2010, PowerPoint 2010 and OneNote 2010, that enables your computer to play back written text as spoken words.

Problem: Do I use my Lotus Notes username and password to log in to Outlook? Solution: No, you use your EASI username and password. This is the same username and password that you use for Blackboard or when you log on to your computer in the morning.

You can easily manage your overflow inbox by creating rules. For example, you may be subscribed to a few mailing list and you want to send them to a specific folder. Here is how you may accomplish this task.

If you have just received your new email account, your regional time zone may not be set correctly. As the result, the time for your received and sent emails is wrong. In addition, if you travel a lot for meetings back & forth to places with different time zones, you might need to set time zones accordingly. Outlook offers an easy way to set the time zones.

You can easily manage your overflow inbox by creating rules. For example, you may be subscribed to a few mailing list and you want to send them to a specific folder. Here is how you may accomplish this task.

By default, no holidays are added to your calendar when you begin using Outlook 2010 for Windows users. By using Calendar options, you can promptly import all holidays into Outlook Calendar in a short time. This option contains a huge list of countries, each with different holidays which can be imported instantly.

If you have just received your new email account, your regional time zone may not be set correctly. As the result, the time for your received and sent emails is wrong. In addition, if you travel a lot for meetings back & forth to places with different time zones, you might need to set time zones accordingly. Outlook offers an easy way to set the time zones.

Microsoft Outlook can be used to allow another person delegation access to receive and respond to meeting requests or responses and to send email on your behalf. Other additional permissions which allow the delegate to read, create, or have full control over the mail can also be granted.

The best way to email a group of people at the same time is to put their email addresses in a distribution list (group). If other people use the same distribution list, you may share your distribution list so that they do not have to reinvent the wheel.

The best way to email a group of people at the same time is to put their email addresses in a distribution list (group). If other people use the same distribution list, you may share your distribution list so that they do not have to reinvent the wheel.

In your new message window, select the Options tab, in More Options group click on the triangle for Save and Send Item To menu item and select Other Folders… Outlook displays a list of your folders, select the folder that you want to save your message. When you send your message, you will have a copy of it in the folder that you selected in previous step.

1. Right-click the message you want to set the reminder for > Follow up > Add Reminder 2. In the Due date list, click the date when you have to complete the follow up. You can also set a reminder before the due date. When you are done click the OK button.

Outlook, by default, separates the email addresses using a ";”. You may change this option to use “,” as separator. File > Options > Mail > scroll down to Send messages section and select Comma can be used

While the Outlook Junk Email Filter protects against much of the spam sent to you, no filter can catch every junk message. By default, the Junk Email Filter is turned on, and the protection level is set to Low, the setting designed to catch the most obvious spam. You can adjust the sensitivity of the Junk Email Filter. Messages detected by the Junk Email Filter are moved to the Junk E-mail folder.

The Weather Bar in Outlook displays weather conditions and forecast for a geographic location. A user can choose one or multiple locations, and conveniently see weather data in the Weather Bar in the calendar module.

Your passwords are the keys you use to access your personal information that you have stored on your computer. It is very important that you always create a strong password. Passwords provide the first line of defense against unauthorized access to your organization.

The Zoom Microsoft Outlook Plugin is designed to make scheduling a meeting or starting an instant meeting in Microsoft Outlook quick and convenient. The Plugin allows you to schedule and start instant Zoom meetings from your Outlook app.